Sean Speer: The Left has a self-policing problem

2023/10/28 Leave a comment

Yep:

A key feature of a political movement’s health is its ability to self-police against ideological excesses or reactionary forms of politics. It’s not easy to do. There are powerful incentives that tilt against it, including the risk of alienating prospective supporters, harming personal relationships, and granting political ammunition to one’s opponents. There are also practical limits in a distributive democracy where there are rarely points of authority that can plausibly claim to speak for a political movement as a whole. 

Yet just because it’s hard doesn’t mean that there isn’t some onus—particularly among elite actors—to call out and, where necessary, isolate radicalism within their ranks. 

At its apogee in the second half of the twentieth century, National Reviewmagazine played this role on the American Right. Its founder, William F. Buckley Jr., famously wrote the John Birch Society out of the mainstream conservative movement that he was assiduously building. He similarly published a scathing review of Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged, by one of the magazine’s editors, Whittaker Chambers, that signaled to the world that Rand’s objectivism didn’t have a home in it either.

In the ensuing decades, the American Right has ceased to self-police. At this point, not only are its political leaders merely trying to stay ahead of their most radical voices, but within the adjacent world of conservative ideas and thought, it can at times be hard to distinguish between the elites and the fringe. 

Canadian conservatism has generally had less of a reactionary problem. There are doubtless various factors including the Westminster model’s emphasis on top-down leadership and party discipline, the country’s more moderate political culture, and its lower racial salience. 

The Hub has nevertheless, in the two-and-a-half-years since its launch, taken seriously a sense of responsibility for calling out conservative excesses including the reactionary parts of the movement that disposed Jason Kenney as Alberta’s United Conservative Party leader, the conspiratorial impulsesbehind some of the conservative criticism of the World Economic Forum, and the growing trend of online ideas and voices radicalizing young men. 

We know that these instances have antagonized some conservatives who believe that it’s a tactical mistake to cede any ground to the Left. They’ve probably cost us some number of donors and subscribers. We also recognize that there are inherent limits to our ability to neutralize some of these excesses. No one is asking our permission before tweeting or driving their transport truck onto Parliament Hill for that matter. But we still think it’s ultimately healthy for The Hub as an institution and conservatism as a whole to speak out when we feel it’s called for. 

This notion of self-policing is something that I’ve thought a lot about in recent years. I wonder what I would have done if I had been a Republican in 2015 and 2016. I don’t know. It’s easy to look the other way or rationalize bad ideas on one’s own side. 

But the lesson of the past several years in the United States is that even if there are downsides for those who are prepared to be self-critical, there’s not a lot of upside for those who aren’t. Ask Republican congressional leaders like Kevin McCarthy or Jim Jordan. Do their choices in hindsight look better or shrewder than Liz Cheney’s? The answer is self-evidently no. 

I share this context because the reaction of the Canadian Left to Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel has revealed a self-policing problem. It’s become clear that the movement’s intellectual and political leaders have permitted radical ideas and voices to occupy an outsized place in today’s progressivism. The consequences have alarmingly played themselves out in recent weeks on university campuses, the streets of the country’s major cities, and even inside our mainstream politics. Put bluntly: the Left has an antisemitism problem. 

Even that however doesn’t seem to fully capture the magnitude and nature of the problem. It’s not merely the fringe expressions of outright Jew-hatred that we’ve witnessed. It’s actually something far deeper and more mainstream that may be the bigger cause for concern.

The Left’s strong attachment to radical ideas such as “decolonisation”, “oppressor versus oppressed” frameworks, and the so-called “right to resist” has created an intellectual context in which acts of terrorism and violence can find affirmation and support. 

There are different factors that have contributed to the problem. One is that progressives have so convinced themselves that the rise of the so-called “far right” represents an existential threat that they’ve been prepared to make alliances with radical political figures and organizations (“no enemies to the Left”) or opted to overlook the rise of radicalism within their movement. To the extent that they may acknowledge it, there’s been a tendency to minimize these intellectual trends as merely a form of campus politics or faculty lounge theorizing. 

Another is that the problem on the Left is essentially the opposite of the one on the Right. For conservatives, self-policing is mainly about conservative elites trying to constrain the excesses of the right-wing masses. For progressives, the excesses are among left-wing elites themselves. Radicalism finds its strongest expression among university faculty, law school students, and the panoply of non-profit organizations that comprise the modern Left. It’s not obvious therefore who’s supposed to be doing the policing. 

But it needs to happen. North American scenes of anti-Jewish rallies and full-throated defences of Hamas’s horrific terrorist attacks rooted in left-wing theories of anti-colonialism and anti-settler resistance are signs that radicalism has spilled out from university seminar rooms into the streets. 

These protests and rallies—including ones that have targeted Jewish restaurants and cultural centres—have exposed these problems for everyone to see. They’ve forced us to confront the interrelationship between these Manichean ideas about identity and power promulgated by left-wing voices and antisemitism. This should lead to a reassessment of the public good case for subsidizing various forms of critical theory education and scholarship which often seem like a thin veneer of academic rigour for what is otherwise a set of retrograde intellectual propositions about race, gender, sexuality, and society. 

But that’s probably a necessary yet insufficient response to what has played out in recent weeks. This is in large part a progressivism problem that progressives themselves must address. Progressive elites who lament the rise of the far right need to reckon with the rise of the far left and their own role in galvanizing it. Self-policing is hard—especially when it requires serious introspection—but it’s necessary. It’s time for the Left to police its own side. 

Source: Sean Speer: The Left has a self-policing problem

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , , ,

Kheiriddin: Pro-Palestine protesters ignore history — and their own causes pay the price

2023/10/28 Leave a comment

Valid questions for those who openly support Hamas and its actions, as distinct from those who support a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel:

By now, the world has been treated to countless demonstrations in support of Palestinian self-determination, most of which conveniently whitewash the Oct. 7 atrocities committed by Hamas as a justifiable “resistance” against Israel. The latest was a protest on Thursday by students in Toronto.

This mirrors another walkout a couple years ago, in which Toronto high school students were photographed holding a sign reading: “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free.” As a parent, that one felt the most disturbing.

Do these young people understand what that slogan means? Do they know who they are “allied” with by chanting those words? I suspect not. Kids know what they are fed on TikTok and Instagram, where disinformation is rampant and history, both recent and ancient, is conveniently ignored. And they aren’t the only ones who ignore it.

How is it that feminists can cheer a “resistance” that raped women so badly, they were found with their pelvises shattered, and that paraded half-naked, half-dead young women the streets? Perhaps because they conveniently ignore that violence against women is also endemic in Gaza: in 2019, the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics reported that 41 per cent of women there had experienced domestic violence.

How can LGBTQ+ groups shout and scream for a “free Palestine” when earlier this month, a gay Palestinian man was beheaded in Hebron, his head and torso dumped near his family’s home, for the “crime” of being LGBTQ+? How can they support an organization like Hamas, which killed one of its own commanders in 2016 after accusing him of having gay sex?

How can Black Lives Matter (BLM) post an image on Twitter of a paragliding terrorist with the caption, “I stand with Palestine”? (BLM subsequently took it down, but stated that, “We must stand unwaveringly on the side of the oppressed.”)

How is it that BLM turns a blind eye to Hamas’s Black slave trafficking in the early 2010s to fund its terror operations? Why don’t they mention that up to 800,000 Africans were trafficked to the Middle East during the late 19th and early 20th centuries — and that slavery continued to be legal in much of the Mideast as late as the 1960s?

Why? Because to concede any of these things would spoil the left-wing narrative that binds these “allies” together: oppression is solely the purview of white, heterosexual, colonizing westerners, and any group that is “west-adjacent,” such as the Jews. It also undermines their belief that any means, including terror, is justified in order to resist it.

What we are witnessing is intersectionality gone amok. It’s also a story that is over 200 years old, again buried in the mists of time.

The year was 1789, and the event was the French Revolution. The Jacobins and their allies revolted against the French ruling class, including nobility, clergy and anyone who smelled of privilege, on behalf of the peasants who were starving, miserable and oppressed.

But they didn’t just revolt. They launched the Reign of Terror, formally declaring in the French National Assembly that, “Terror is the order of the day.”

In the words of their leader, Maximilien Robespierre, “Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie (homeland).”

For the next five years, the French terror crew gave Hamas a run for their money. They held public executions by guillotine, filling the streets with blood. They slaughtered entire towns. When they ran out of guillotines, they used cannons.

In the worst district, the Vendée, they slaughtered thousands of people, including women and children. They held mass drownings in the Loire River, where if victims managed to free their hands from shackles, troops in boats were there to hack off their arms. The latter event was even immortalized by artist Pierre-Gabriel Berthaul as one of the “great moments” of the revolution.

By the time the Reign of Terror ended in July 1794, 17,000 people had been officially executed, and as many as 10,000 had died in prison or without trial.

The left has copied this playbook consistently since then. The Bolsheviks deployed the Red Terror in Russia between 1918 and 1922; Stalin presided over the genocide of an estimated seven-million people in the ’30s and ’40s; Mao Zedong’s government sent between 500,000 and two-million Chinese to their deaths during the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976. All justified in the name of overthrowing the “oppressors” to liberate the oppressed.

Today’s “allies” ignore this history. To them, the end justifies the means — even if those means contradict every social-justice principle they claim to espouse.

The irony, of course, is that the end they seek would not be the paradise they envision. It would not be a state where women, LGBTQ+ and Black lives are respected. It would not be one of equality and human rights.

A Palestinian state under Hamas would be no different than any other murderous theocratic or ideological regime, where the government uses terror and oppression to keep people in line. And where you can bet that kids wouldn’t be allowed to skip school and hold protests on the street.

Source: Pro-Palestine protesters ignore history — and their own causes pay the price

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Immigration Minister set to combat international student fraud 

2023/10/28 Leave a comment

Overdue baby steps:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller is set to unveil on Friday a package of reforms designed to combat fraud in international student admissions and stop bad actors from preying on those students for financial gain, and to fast-track study-permit applications at colleges and universities that meet high standards.

Among the new measures will be a multilayered authentication system for ensuring letters of acceptance from universities and colleges are genuine. A foreign student needs such a letter to apply for a study permit, an immigration document that allows them to enter the country. Fake letters have been used to obtain permits fraudulently.

…

Source: Immigration Minister set to combat international student fraud

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Rioux: La tête et le coeur

2023/10/28 Leave a comment

Money quote: « Comment écraser la tête de l’ennemi sans qu’il nous dévore le coeur ? »

Dans leurs pires méfaits, les nazis ont toujours tenté de cacher leurs abominations. Ils brûlaient les corps, broyaient les os, enterraient les carcasses, tentant chaque fois de préserver un lourd silence sur l’horreur de leurs crimes. Avec un certain succès d’ailleurs, puisqu’il faudra des années après la guerre pour déterrer l’inimaginable au fond des sols endormis comme au creux des mémoires qui s’étaient dépêchées de faire le vide.

Pardon de revenir sur un événement morbide dont l’actualité frénétique voudrait nous laisser croire qu’il s’est produit il y a deux ans déjà. Un événement qui, à l’échelle d’Israël, a fait plus de victimes que le 11 Septembre. Car, il y aura un « avant » et un « après » 7 octobre 2023. C’est ce que le torrent de l’actualité tente habilement de nous cacher, avec la bénédiction de ceux qui croient béatement que toutes les horreurs se valent.

Après la guerre de Six Jours, en 1967, Israël était sorti du conflit avec la fausse assurance de sa supériorité militaire et d’être dorénavant le maître des horloges. Une assurance que commença à fragiliser dès 1973 la guerre du Kippour survenue à la surprise complète des états-majors. La seconde intifada, au début des années 2000, avec ses attentats kamikazes visant au plus près des familles innocentes et des enfants revenant de l’école, mettra fin dans les esprits à toute perspective d’État palestinien dans un avenir prévisible.

Une étape supplémentaire vient d’être franchie avec l’attentat sauvage du 7 octobre. Il a non seulement prouvé que les frontières d’Israël étaient vulnérables, mais aussi que le pire pouvait se produire sur son territoire. Oui, un vrai pogrom semblable à ceux commis au siècle dernier en Europe de l’Est où l’on égorgeait femmes et enfants. Et tout ça sur le territoire d’un pays créé de toutes pièces pour que ça n’arrive plus.

« Cela va rester le plus grand choc de l’histoire juive post-Shoah, déclarait dans Le Monde la sociologue Eva Illouz. C’est toute la réalité ontologique d’Israël qui a été remise en question. Les nazis essayaient de cacher les atrocités, pas de les diffuser. La mort elle-même est devenue un motif de propagande. Il y a là un changement de régime de l’atrocité. »

L’autre nouveauté de cette guerre, c’est qu’on a crié « Allah Akbar » aussi bien à Paris qu’à Berlin, Bruxelles et Melbourne. Ce qu’on a appelé la cause nationale palestinienne semble aujourd’hui pris en otage par une idéologie islamiste mondialisée provoquant en même temps une fabuleuse internationalisation du conflit qui le rend chaque fois plus insoluble. Car les revendications nationales palestiniennes n’intéressent pas plus les fous de dieu que les potentats arabes corrompus.

Si le président français, Emmanuel Macron, a eu raison de rappeler qu’il n’y aura pas de paix dans la région sans la création d’un État national palestinien, force est de reconnaître que cet État sera une utopie tant que le Hamas demeurera ce qu’il est et qu’il transformera cette guerre de libération nationale en un conflit religieux opposant les juifs de Palestine à l’Oumma tout entière. Or, le plus dramatique n’est pas tant de découvrir l’horreur dont est capable le Hamas — on savait depuis longtemps à quoi carburaient ces extrémistes religieux —, mais de prendre conscience que cette organisation terroriste qui instrumentalise la lutte nationale des Palestiniens au nom du prophète jouit du large soutien d’une population galvanisée. En Palestine comme ailleurs dans le monde.

« Il faut donc libérer la Palestine des Israéliens qui veulent la voler, mais aussi des “Arabes” et des islamistes qui veulent la vendre et l’acheter et lui monter sur le dos », écrivait avec courage Kamel Daoud. Et l’écrivain algérien d’ajouter qu’il faut en finir avec « cette solidarité au nom de l’islam et de la haine du juif […] qui ferme les yeux sur le Hamas et sa nature pour crier à l’indignation ».

Éradiquer le Hamas est un objectif noble et nécessaire. Mais il exigera une longue lutte où il faudra éviter le piège de l’après-11 Septembre, comme l’a subtilement rappelé Joe Biden à Jérusalem. Une lutte qui ne saurait se résumer à envahir Gaza pendant quelques semaines au prix de milliers de vies palestiniennes. Et pour rendre Gaza à qui ensuite ? Sachant qu’Israël ne souhaite pas administrer ce territoire depuis qu’Ariel Sharon s’en est retiré en 2005.

Qu’il faille écraser le Hamas, à la fois pour Israël et pour l’honneur même du peuple palestinien, ne devrait pas faire de doute. Mais comment le faire sans se déshonorer ? Toute la complexité de la réaction d’Israël tient à cette question tragique qu’a admirablement posée l’écrivain Fabrice Hadjadj : « Comment écraser la tête de l’ennemi sans qu’il nous dévore le coeur ? »

Source: La tête et le coeur

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Tasha Kheiriddin: Re-election is more important to Trudeau than supporting Canadian Jews

2023/10/27 Leave a comment

A bit over the top but yes, diaspora communities influence all parties and governments. But I fully expect the PM will visit Café Landwer and his initial messaging was strong. But of course the changing demographics have an impact. That 23 Liberal MPs called for an immediate ceasefire, along with recent mixed messaging, reflects, in part, that there are 114 ridings where Muslims form more than 5 percent of the population, compared to 13 ridings where Jews form more than 5 percent:

The Israel-Hamas War has shocked the world on many levels: the brutality of the Oct. 7 attacks against Israeli civilians, the propagation of disinformation by supposedly reputable news outlets, and the overt antisemitism on display in academia, politics and public demonstrations. The concept of decolonization, so fashionable in left-wing circles, has been turned against a people who for over a millennium have been persecuted, stateless, and the victim of racial hatred. Yet today, Jews are being cast as villains, in a manner that would make even Shakespeare blush.

In Canada, the conflict has also done something else. It has definitively exposed the true motivations for Liberal government’s seemingly incoherent and milquetoast foreign policy. Instead of standing for principle and the interests of our nation and its allies, the Trudeau Doctrine is dictated by diaspora politics and his party’s re-election prospects. This is true not only of its positioning on the current conflict, but on every major foreign policy issue in the past year.

It began with the Liberals trying at all costs to avoid a public inquiry into Chinese electoral interference. In February 2023, the Globe and Mail broke the story of how China implemented a sophisticated strategy to engineer the return of a Liberal minority government and defeat opposition Conservative politicians in the 2021 election. Allegations about this had been swirling for months, including reports on Chinese interference in the previous 2019 election.

But instead of seeking answers, Trudeau sought cover. He appointed “special rapporteur” David Johnston to examine the issue, effectively kicking the can down the road. Months later, Johnston quit in disgrace when the House of Commons demanded he resign after he had conveniently concluded that interference claims were based on “limited and partial intelligence” and thus did not warrant an inquiry.

Yet months later, when Trudeau was given information by CSIS that the agency was “actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link”  between India and the killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist gunned down in the parking lot of a temple in Surrey, the government leapt into action.

Trudeau first raised the issue privately with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a G20 meeting in New Delhi. When that didn’t achieve the desired result, Trudeau publicly accused India of involvement in the crime in September, setting off a diplomatic firestorm that continues to burn. Canada’s trade mission to India was cancelled, 41 of our diplomats in India have been recalled, and our Indo-Pacific Strategy lies in ashes less than a year after it was unveiled.

Why did Trudeau act in such an incoherent way on these issues? Well, it’s math. A glance at the Canadian electoral map shows the importance of the Sikh and Chinese diaspora vote in both British Columbia and Ontario. There’s also the matter of Trudeau’s supply and confidence agreement with the NDP, led by Jagmeet Singh, who was strongly supportive of Trudeau’s stance.

And now, as war rages once again in the Middle East, there’s the Muslim vote to worry about, in electoral districts in Scarborough and the 905 belt around Toronto, as well as in Montreal. With the Conservatives soaring in the polls, ridings like Mississauga-Lakeshore, which the Liberals kept in the past byelection, could be in jeopardy if Muslim voters switch allegiances or stay home.

So once again, Trudeau is letting domestic policy dictate foreign policy. And this time, he’s not only throwing the Jewish community under the bus, but the values Canadians cherish, including the protection of minorities from hatred. And this weekend provided yet another example of that.

On Oct. 21, Trudeau visited a mosque and tweeted, “As members of the Palestinian, Arab, and Black Muslim communities gathered for prayer yesterday, I wanted them to know this: We know you’re worried and hurting. We’re here for you. We will not stop advocating for civilians to be protected and for international law to be upheld.”

Yet on the same day, a Jewish-owned business in Toronto was targeted by protesters waving Palestinian flags and screaming to boycott the “Zionist café.” Social media was flooded with images of hundreds of people mobbing the windows of Cafe Landwer while frightened patrons sat helplessly inside.

Trudeau’s response? We’re still waiting.

Source: Tasha Kheiriddin: Re-election is more important to Trudeau than supporting Canadian Jews

Filed under foreign policy, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Nicolas: Les mots et leur pouvoir

2023/10/27 Leave a comment

Of note:

Trois réflexions autour des mots et de leur pouvoir, alors que l’Histoire se joue sous nos yeux.

1. Liberté de presse. Trois journalistes israéliens comptaient parmi les victimes de l’attaque du Hamas du 7 octobre dernier. Depuis, un journaliste libanais a aussi été tué lors d’une attaque d’Israël contre le Hezbollah. Et 19 journalistes palestiniens sont morts à Gaza, pour la plupart dans les bombardements de l’armée israélienne. Samedi, Reporteurs sans frontières a lancé une alerte : « Israël suffoque le journalisme à Gaza ». Pourquoi ? En gros, parce que des journalistes sont tués, sévèrement blessés ou forcés de fuir en laissant tout derrière, mais aussi parce que des salles de nouvelles entières sont détruites par les bombardements et que l’on coupe une partie de l’accès à Internet sur le territoire. Résultat : les nouvelles qui nous arrivent de Gaza sont partielles, tout au plus.

Pourquoi les grandes salles de nouvelles, qui nous avaient assuré qu’elles étaient Charlie, restent-elles silencieuses sur cette question, elles qui sortent habituellement de leur réserve pour dénoncer les attaques contre la liberté de presse ?

2. Sentiment d’impuissance. Il est fascinant de lire entre les lignes des communications diplomatiques américaines. Depuis la semaine dernière, le président Joe Biden exhorte le premier ministre israélien, Benjamin Nétanyahou, à ne pas répéter les erreurs commises par les Américains au lendemain du 11 Septembre, alors que les États-Unis étaient « enragés ».

Mardi, Barack Obama, avec la liberté de parole permise à la retraite, allait plus loin. Il écrit, dans une déclaration publiée sur le Web, que « la décision du gouvernement israélien de couper la nourriture, l’eau et l’électricité à une population captive menace non seulement d’aggraver une crise humanitaire, elle pourrait aussi durcir les attitudes palestiniennes pour des générations, éroder le soutien international à Israël, faire le jeu des ennemis d’Israël et miner les efforts à long terme pour la paix et la stabilité dans la région ».

Son texte donne pour référence une chronique de Thomas Friedman dans le New York Times, qui pousse encore plus loin — un ancien président ne renvoie pas ses lecteurs à une chronique sans implicitement l’appuyer. On y écrit qu’il « n’y aura personne pour aider Israël à soutenir plus de deux millions de Gazaouis — pas si Israël est mené par un gouvernement qui pense et agit comme s’il pouvait exercer justement sa vengeance sur le Hamas alors qu’il construit injustement une société s’apparentant à un apartheid, menée par des suprémacistes juifs, en Cisjordanie ».

Entendons-nous : personne, parmi ces personnalités américaines, ne demande encore un cessez-le-feu, pourtant urgent. Cela dit, le changement de ton par rapport à Nétanyahou est notable. Et ce réajustement politique semble prendre racine dans une conscience de l’opinion internationale (et américaine) de plus en plus sensible à la souffrance palestinienne.

Plusieurs se sentent écrasés par un sentiment d’impuissance et se demandent si les manifestations ou les partages d’information sur les médias sociaux valent quelque chose. Quand on décode ce qui se dit sur les canaux diplomatiques, la réponse est oui, les expressions de solidarité ou d’inquiétude populaires comptent. Les gouvernements regardent les manifestations, voient ce qui se dit sur Meta et ce qu’on recherche sur Google. Les choses commencent à bouger. Trop lentement et trop tard pour tellement de vies de civils, mais peut-être assez vite pour en sauver d’autres.

3. Sensibilité à la critique. Cette critique montante d’Israël suscite beaucoup de douleur et de désarroi dans une bonne partie des communautés juives nord-américaines. Ce n’est pas tout le monde, bien sûr, qui se sent ainsi lié à Israël, au contraire. Mais ce lien est fort pour plusieurs, et il est important de chercher à comprendre pourquoi.

« Une terre sans peuple pour un peuple sans terre. » Cette expression sioniste populaire contient à la fois l’effacement du peuple palestinien et cette idée d’Israël comme refuge pour un peuple juif privé de sécurité durant des siècles. Le rêve d’Israël comme symbole de sécurité enfin possible est transmis à bien des enfants d’ici, dès le plus jeune âge. On comprend donc que l’émotion puisse être forte lorsqu’il en est question.

On comprend aussi pourquoi la critique d’Israël est souvent plus difficile ici qu’en Israël même. Dans toutes les diasporas, les langues se délient plus facilement dans la sécurité de l’entre-soi que lorsque l’on craint que nos mots soient récupérés par une majorité qui nous a longtemps opprimés. Pour voir l’état de conscience de la gauche israélienne, d’ailleurs, il faut aller lire les pages du Haaretz. Disons qu’on n’y mâche pas ses mots et que l’horreur de ce que font subir l’armée aux Gazaouis et les colons aux Cisjordaniens y est clairement nommée.

On en comprend que, si l’idée de sécurité est encore liée pour beaucoup à cet ailleurs, c’est notamment qu’il subsiste encore, ici même, un sentiment d’insécurité. Plusieurs m’ont écrit pour me dire qu’ils ne peuvent s’empêcher de sentir que le monde est en train de leur tourner le dos et qu’ils seront bientôt seuls, comme les Juifs l’ont trop longtemps été.

Il y a dans cette crainte de l’abandon imminent un trauma intergénérationnel hérité de l’Holocauste et des pogroms — et un constat de notre échec à nous, non-Juifs, à contribuer à un sentiment de sécurité communautaire ici même, au Canada, alors que l’antisémitisme est en hausse.

Je crois qu’il y a tout à fait de la place pour continuer à être témoin de l’Histoire, dénoncer la guerre là-bas, les morts de tous les côtés, ainsi que les déplacements forcés, et tout autre crime de guerre et abus envers les Palestiniens, vu notamment le déséquilibre inouï des forces entre les acteurs en présence, et, au même moment, refuser de laisser une partie des communautés juives d’ici se débrouiller seules avec leur propre douleur et leurs propres traumas ainsi réveillés, et renforcer notre engagement envers leur sécurité et leur dignité.

Non seulement il doit y avoir de la place pour le faire, mais ça me semble la seule chose juste à faire.

Anthropologue, Emilie Nicolas est chroniqueuse au Devoir et à Libération. Elle anime le balado Détours pour Canadaland.

Source: Les mots et leur pouvoir

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

USCIS Changes H-1B Visa Lottery, Extends Cap-Gap For Students

2023/10/27 Leave a comment

Interesting proposed shift from multiple registrations per applicant to unique identifiers, among other proposed changes:

Employers, international students and H-1B professionals will like some elements of a proposed H-1B visa rule, although other measures will generate opposition and invite litigation. The most significant change for many individuals will be how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts the H-1B lottery. USCIS published the notice of proposed rulemaking on October 23, 2023, and it is subject to a 60-day comment period that could result in revisions. A proposed narrowing of the degrees that would allow a position to qualify as an H-1B specialty occupation might be the rule’s most controversial measure. (See article here.)

Changing The H-1B Lottery

USCIS uses a lottery when companies file more H-1B applications (or registrations) than the annual limit of 85,000 (65,000 plus a 20,000 exemption for advanced degree holders from U.S. universities). According to USCIS, registrations for FY 2024 increased largely due to multiple registrations submitted for the same individuals. Still, due to the low annual H-1B limit, USCIS would have rejected over 75% of H-1B registrations for FY 2024, even if beneficiaries with multiple registrations were excluded from the lottery.

USCIS proposes a solution—selecting H-1B registrations by unique beneficiaries—recommended in a May 1, 2023, Forbesarticle. Many employers will likely approve of the change.

“Under the proposed update to the random selection process, registrants would continue to submit registrations on behalf of beneficiaries and beneficiaries would continue to be able to have more than one registration submitted on their behalf,” according to USCIS. “Selection would be based on each unique beneficiary identified in the registration pool, rather than each registration. Each unique beneficiary would be entered in the selection process once, regardless of how many registrations were submitted on their behalf. If a beneficiary were selected, each registrant that submitted a registration on that beneficiary’s behalf would be notified of selection and would be eligible to file a petition on that beneficiary’s behalf.”

USCIS will use “valid passport information” to identify unique beneficiaries, and individuals would select among the employers that submitted H-1B registrations on their behalf. “DHS [Department of Homeland Security] proposes to require the submission of valid passport information, including the passport number, country of issuance, and expiration date, in addition to the currently required information. Registrants would no longer be allowed to select an option indicating that the beneficiary does not have a passport.”

USCIS anticipates a beneficiary could have more than one potential employer. “If multiple unrelated companies submitted registrations for a beneficiary and the beneficiary were selected, then the beneficiary could have greater bargaining power or flexibility to determine which company or companies could submit an H-1B petition for the beneficiary, because all of the companies that submitted a registration for that unique beneficiary would be notified that their registration was selected and they are eligible to file a petition on behalf of that beneficiary.”

USCIS will “extend the existing prohibition on related entities filing multiple petitions by also prohibiting related entities from submitting multiple registrations for the same individual.”

USCIS states, “The proposed change may also potentially benefit companies that submit legitimate registrations for unique beneficiaries by increasing their chances to employ a specific beneficiary in H-1B status.”

The controversy over multiple registrations obscures a stark reality for employers: H-1B registrations with only one employer increased by 66% between FY 2022 and FY 2024, illustrating the increasing demand for talent in the U.S. economy.

Extended Cap-Gap Protection For International Students

F-1 students, often working on Optional Practical Training, now receive “cap-gap” protection when changing to H-1B status. In a move students, employers and universities will welcome, the proposed rule provides automatic “cap-gap” protection until April 1 rather than the current October 1 (i.e., an additional six months). USCIS states this “would avoid disruptions in employment authorization that some F-1 nonimmigrants seeking cap-gap extensions have experienced over the past several years.”

Nonprofit Research Institutions

The proposed rule would allow more organizations to qualify as nonprofit research institutions. That would make them eligible to file H-1B petitions exempt from the H-1B annual limit. USCIS would change the definition of a nonprofit research organization from one “primarily engaged in basic research and/or applied research” to an organization with “a fundamental activity of” basic research and/or applied research. “This would likely increase the population of petitioners who are now eligible for the cap exemption and, by extension, would likely increase the number of petitions that may be cap-exempt,” according to USCIS.

H-1B Petitions For Entrepreneurs 

Due to the regulatory definition of an employee-employer relationship, USCIS rules make it difficult for entrepreneurs to qualify for H-1B petitions. USCIS recognizes this causes many high-skilled foreign nationals to not found a company or wait until they acquire permanent residence. “Nearly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. billion-dollar companies (unicorns) were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants,” according to research by the National Foundation for American Policy, indicating what the U.S. economy loses when restricting foreign-born entrepreneurship.

“DHS is proposing to add provisions to specifically address situations where a potential H-1B beneficiary owns a controlling interest in the petitioning entity,” according to the proposed rule. “One of the proposed conditions is that the beneficiary may perform duties that are directly related to owning and directing the petitioner’s business as long as the beneficiary will perform specialty occupation duties authorized under the petition a majority of the time.”

Initial approvals for H-1B petitions when the H-1B beneficiary “possesses a controlling ownership interest in the petitioning” business “will be limited to a validity period of up to 18 months.”

Codifying H-1B Petition Amendments

Beginning July 2015, USCIS required amended H-1B petitions when employers received a new labor condition application (LCA) from the Department of Labor. This followed the agency labeling the Simeio Solutions case an Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) precedent decision binding on adjudicators. The decision raised costs for many employers.

“Any change in the place of employment to a geographical area that requires a corresponding labor condition application to be certified to USCIS is considered a material change and requires an amended or new petition to be filed with USCIS before the H-1B worker may begin work at the new place of employment,” under the proposed regulatory language. An employer does not need to file an amended petition if the H-1B visa holder moves “to a new job location within the same area of intended employment as listed on the labor condition application.”

Requiring Compliance With Site Visit Requests

For many years, USCIS has conducted site visits at the employers of H-1B visa holders. However, attorneys argue the authority to conduct such site visits is suspect. USCIS seeks to change that with the proposed rule by mandating compliance with the agency’s visits.

“The proposals must be viewed in the context of how much the government will charge for access to H-1B visas,” said Lynden Melmed, a partner with Berry Appleman & Leiden (BAL) and a former chief counsel of USCIS. “The fee rule, which is expected to be released at any time, could be more impactful than any of the changes proposed this past week.”

Source: USCIS Changes H-1B Visa Lottery, Extends Cap-Gap For Students

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Le recrutement du Québec à l’étranger est vu d’un œil critique par des pays sources

2023/10/27 Leave a comment

No better nor worse than others, but with real implications for source countries:

Le Québec pige dans les forces vives des pays étrangers, y compris dans des secteurs névralgiques comme la santé, et le plus souvent sans invitation officielle. Les ambassadeurs du Maroc et du Bénin ainsi qu’un recruteur à l’étranger souhaitent envoyer un signal au gouvernement québécois.

Tous reconnaissent que l’exode des cerveaux, un phénomène aussi connu sous le terme de brain drain en anglais, existe depuis longtemps. À une différence près : ce sont aujourd’hui des gouvernements qui font directement du recrutement, comme celui du Québec, sans toujours en demander l’autorisation ou offrir une contrepartie.

« Du côté des gouvernements qui recherchent cette main-d’oeuvre, ces compétences, il devrait y avoir une certaine retenue et une réflexion », affirme l’ambassadrice du Maroc au Canada, Souriya Otmani.

Après le terrible tremblement de terre qui a frappé le Maroc en septembre dernier, les médias locaux ont rapporté que les hôpitaux manquaient de personnel, une pénurie déjà aiguë et aggravée par une saignée des professionnels encouragée par des pays recruteurs.

Trois jours plus tard, une page officielle du gouvernement du Québec annonçait sans gêne une séance d’information pour ceux souhaitant immigrer dans la province, avec à la clé des emplois dans le secteur de la santé.

Le peu de ressources humaines « dont nous avons un besoin impérieux » est « pompé de manière un peu cynique par des partenaires qui sont déjà beaucoup plus développés », indique quant à lui l’ambassadeur de la République du Bénin au Canada et aux États-Unis, Jean-Claude do Rego.

La santé et l’éducation sont des domaines de préoccupation pour les deux officiels, alors que d’autres professions techniques les inquiètent moins. « Oui, il y a certaines catégories professionnelles où il y a un surplus, et le Maroc cherche à assurer des débouchés, y compris à l’étranger », explique la diplomate marocaine.

Il existe pour ces domaines des canaux officiels de recrutement « tout à fait légaux », comme l’Agence nationale de promotion de l’emploi et des compétences (ANAPEC) au Maroc. Cette agence nationale prend cependant garde de ne pas promouvoir l’exode dans « des secteurs très sensibles », comme la santé, avance Mme Otmani. Elle tient à préciser qu’elle ne donne que son point de vue, tout en admettant que le sujet est régulièrement abordé dans plusieurs arènes politiques et économiques au pays.

L’exode des infirmières, des aides-soignantes, des médecins ou des préposés est une « perte sèche pour un pays en plein développement comme le nôtre, qui a besoin de toutes ses ressources humaines qualifiées », ajoute-t-elle.

Des pays en situation critique

L’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) publie depuis 2020 une liste rouge des pays dont les systèmes de santé sont les plus vulnérables, afin d’alerter les pays recruteurs.

Québec recrute directement des personnes au Bénin, au Cameroun, en Côte d’Ivoire, au Togo et au Sénégal, des pays qui figurent sur la Liste de soutien et de sauvegarde du personnel de la santé. À défaut de pouvoir l’interdire, l’OMS demande aux gouvernements recruteurs d’adhérer à un certain code de conduite et de passer des ententes avec les bassins de travailleurs.

L’ambassadeur do Rego ne vise pas expressément les efforts du Québec dans son pays d’origine, mais il croit que la province est bien positionnée pour « trouver de meilleures modalités » afin que ce type d’échange « puisse rester compatible avec les besoins de développement de la société qui laisse partir ses talents », expose-t-il.

Ce pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest finance l’éducation publique, y compris des formations postsecondaires. Or, comme l’indignation autour des médecins québécois qui vont pratiquer ailleurs, cette « équation économique nationale est négative », indique quant à lui Yves Legault, vice-président exécutif ISA Immigration et Recrutement.

« Le discours politique est : “Pas de problème, on va aller chercher des infirmières à l’étranger.” Mais on n’a pas payé pour leur éducation et il n’y a aucun mécanisme de retour. Il y a une iniquité flagrante dans ce modèle migratoire », martèle M. Legault, qui est également consul honoraire du Bénin à Toronto.

Solutions

Bien sûr, pas question d’empêcher la mobilité internationale, disent-ils tous. « Mais comment peut-on rendre moins pénibles les tensions » sur un système déjà fragilisé ? demande M. do Rego.

Les gens formulent eux-mêmes le désir d’aller vivre à l’étranger, reconnaît Yves Legault, dans la « recherche d’une vie meilleure pour eux, mais surtout pour leurs enfants ». Si toutefois les conditions étaient réunies dans leur pays d’origine, « ils n’auraient pas à s’expatrier ». Le défi est donc d’aider à « construire des opportunités » dans leur pays d’origine, à l’heure où les pays occidentaux montrent un certain désintérêt pour la coopération internationale.

« Je ne suis pas manichéen. Je comprends les raisons fondamentales pour lesquelles certains pays trouvent cette solution à leurs problèmes », affirme l’ambassadeur du Bénin, qui invite à « trouver une solution de compromis ».

Il évoque notamment la volonté de son gouvernement depuis plusieurs années d’obtenir un plus grand nombre de places à coût réduit dans le système éducatif au Québec. Les étrangers paient en effet des droits de scolarité beaucoup plus élevés que les citoyens ou les résidents permanents, mais des bourses pour en être exonérés existent. « Nous ne bénéficions que d’un quota de dix bourses, alors que nous avons 50 fois plus de demandes », illustre-t-il.

La réflexion est aussi déjà lancée au Maroc et au Bénin pour trouver des incitatifs à rester là-bas, en améliorant les conditions salariales.

Elle donne l’exemple d’une entente avec l’Allemagne, qui prévoit une formation pour les travailleurs marocains et un retour éventuel dans leur pays d’origine. « Personne ne va les obliger [à rentrer dans leur pays], mais on insiste dès le recrutement sur le fait que c’est une condition de départ, de manière que le Maroc bénéficie de cette formation aussi. »

Source: Le recrutement du Québec à l’étranger est vu d’un œil critique par des pays sources

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Amid growing dissent, will Canada change its immigration plans?

2023/10/26 Leave a comment

Good overview, largely from the more pro-current approach side, as we await the levels plan release:

Canada is set to unveil the latest targets for how many new residents it hopes to welcome in the coming years.

The annual announcement of permanent resident levels, something Immigration Minister Marc Miller must do in Parliament on or before Nov. 1, is the kind of dry fare that has traditionally drawn little attention, serving largely as a governmental formality amid high levels of public support for immigration.

But this year’s numbers are expected to face more scrutiny given a surging discussion of whether Canada has the capacity and the infrastructure it needs to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of newcomers it is bringing in.

{{tncms-inline displaytitle=”Immigration drives Canada’s population to 40M” embedid=”ba479a79-f163-4cc5-97a2-74273de44cbb” linktodownloadthumbnail=”https://oovvuu-thumbnails-prod.imgix.net/48/80128685-73f5-4883-bd94-3b3795f23f29.jpg?h=200&w=300″ playerscripturl=”https://playback.oovvuu.media/player/v2/index.js” type=”oovvuu”}}

And, as the government seeks to maintain public support for immigration, some say how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals approach immigration — and the messaging around it — will be key.

The government’s current immigration plan, unveiled in 2022, aimed to bring in 465,000 new permanent residents this year, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. The immigration ministry is on track to meet the 2023 target.

The upcoming plan, however, will look at the numbers for the next three years.

Recent polls suggest that Canadians’ appetite for more immigration may be waning. A Nanos report in September showed 53 per cent of Canadians wanted Ottawa to accept fewer immigrants, up from 34 per cent in a similar poll in March. Then, an online survey by Research Co. in October found 38 per cent of Canadians said they believe immigration is having a mostly negative effect, up 12 percentage points from research conducted a year ago.

“Some people are feeling there’s too much immigration, when it comes to the fact that it’s driving up the housing cost, exacerbating the housing shortage, making the connection between immigration and health care and education,” says Toronto Metropolitan University professor Rupa Banerjee, whose research focuses on immigrant employment integration.

“Immigration is on people’s radar more and the plan will be scrutinized a lot more closely.”

So far, the government has seemed inclined to stay the course.

“I don’t see a world in which we lower it, the need is too great,” Miller told Bloomberg in August. “Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at.”

Magdalene Cooman of the Conference Board of Canada said Canadians need to understand the immigration plan’s long-term objectives are to address the country’s aging population and boost economic growth.

While immigrants do need housing, health care and other government services, she said, people shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that newcomers are also part of the solutions to those challenges, and contribute to the workforce, whether it’s by building new homes or caring for those in hospitals.

“There is a reason why the federal government has moved in this direction,” said Cooman, the board’s interim associate director in charge of immigration research.

“Immigration is really the only way to increase population, to support population growth and to support the future of Canada.”

A recent report by Desjardins said the country’s working-age population (those 15 to 64) would need to grow by just over two per cent annually in order to offset the impacts of aging. That growth relies largely on immigration.

“What’s the optimal level of immigration to Canada? This can be a tough question to answer, as ‘optimal’ is in the eye of the beholder,” said the report. “It depends on the policy objective that immigration is meant to achieve.”

While the short-term strains of the population growth are already showing, the report suggested the federal government could restrict the admission of non-permanent residents such as international students and temporary foreign workers.

Despite the lagging infrastructure, the conference board’s Cooman warned that any pause to the long-term immigration strategy could create other unintended problems.

“I’m not opposed to increasing the levels because I understand the long-term growth strategy,” said Cooman. “But I am opposed to increasing the levels without a strategy to show us how all the infrastructure can be built to accommodate more people in the country. You can’t have one without the other.”

Whom Canada brings in matters, observers say.

Permanent residents come to Canada under the economic, family or humanitarian classes. In 2023, about 58 per cent of them will have been selected based on their education backgrounds and skills; 23 per cent through sponsorships by spouses or children and grandchildren; and the rest as resettled refugees and protected persons.

Using real wages as a proxy for relative productivity of different groups, the Desjardins report said economic immigrants in particular are outperforming the typical Canadian.

Several observers credit the immigration ministry with fine-tuning the way it selects economic immigrants by better matching the skills of candidates with the labour market needs, and targeting those with backgrounds in health care, transportation, trades, agriculture and STEM occupations. Officials, for instance, have relaxed some rules for immigrant physicians and created a special immigrant class to attract workers in construction-related trades.

To immigration lawyer Betsy Kane, the bigger challenge for Miller is to overcome the public backlash and explain his immigration strategy.

“Between the home construction effort and the easing of the doctor efforts, you’re potentially reducing the lag in public opinion,” said Kane, vice-president of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association.

Banerjee of TMU said the government has to be more specific in explaining the immigration plan than just floating the big numbers around.

“We are bringing in trades and transport workers and there’s a number of pilots now that are working to try and bring people into underserviced smaller and rural communities. Many of them are very small (scaled), but there’s been efforts,” said Banerjee.

“A lot of that is lost, because all we see in the headlines is ‘500,000 newcomers being admitted.’”

In August, a CIBC study found there were about one million more people living in Canada than official government estimates, including international students, foreign workers, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. (Unlike permanent residents, temporary residents are uncapped and not included in the immigration plan.)

“We need to make sure these immigration targets also include temporary migration numbers. We cannot have uncapped temporary migration and then pretend that is all of the immigration,” said Banerjee.

In a letter to Miller this month, the Business Council of Canada urged the government to prioritize highly skilled economic-class immigrants to fill high-paying jobs, and raise the ratio of the economic immigrants in the mix from 60 per cent to 65 per cent by 2025.

While the number of job vacancies requiring lower levels of skill and education has declined significantly, the council said unfilled job openings for highly trained and educated professionals remain stubbornly high.

“Enhanced economic immigration is essential,” wrote Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the council, whose member companies support more than six million jobs across Canada. “If we do not seek this skilled labour, our economic rivals will.”

But employers aren’t the only group that would like to get a bigger piece of the permanent-resident pie.

Advocates for refugees are urging Ottawa to raise the levels of resettled refugees up from about 10 per cent to 15 per cent to accommodate the growing number of displaced migrants around the world, which now stands at 108 million.

“If we are able to increase Canada’s resettlement targets, it would support the reduction of the backlog,” said Gauri Sreenivasan of the Canadian Council for Refugees, adding that a recent government audit showed 99,000 refugees were waiting in the queue by December 2022.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said she’s concerned about the backlash against the immigrant community.

“No good will come out of that because we have already lived through racism and discrimination in Canada’s history,” she said. “The government has to have a housing plan and an infrastructure plan for our community.”

Tom Kmiec, the Conservative immigration critic, did not respond to the Star’s requests for comment. This summer, his party leader, Pierre Poilievre, did say the immigration system is broken, but sidestepped reporters’ questions about whether he would change the current targets.

Source: Amid growing dissent, will Canada change its immigration plans?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Newcomer women often struggle to pursue their careers in Canada. These programs are helping them succeed

2023/10/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

When Rikhita Nair moved from India to Victoria, B.C., she had nearly a decade of experience as a PR and communications specialist working with startups in tech, e-commerce and higher education. Eager for a job, Ms. Nair says she applied “like crazy to just about anything that remotely matched my abilities,” focusing on marketing and communications roles. But her efforts didn’t result in any opportunities.

“I quickly realized that this approach wasn’t working out so well,” she says.

Ms. Nair says she was “mentally prepared” for a long job search, taking into account the state of the economy and layoffs in the tech industry. “But it became particularly challenging after eight months. The constant rejections in job interviews began to take a toll on my confidence. Sometimes, I believed I had performed well having reached the final stage of the interview, only to be turned down, which was demoralizing.”

While browsing LinkedIn for job postings, Ms. Nair came across a program that piqued her interest. Called Lumen, this skills training program helps folks from Indigenous populations, visible minorities and newcomers find their first jobs in Canada, at no cost to the participants.

Anahita Thukral, founder of Lumen and media organization Hear Her Stories, says that skilled professional newcomers, like Ms. Nair, face “structural inequalities” when it comes to securing employment after arriving in Canada. For example, their international credentials may not be recognized, employers may pass them over due to a lack of “Canadian experience” and there may be language barriers.

“Networking, as a valuable mechanism to build connections and seek opportunities, is not prevalent in countries where most people are coming to Canada from, and is another skill that people need to acquire and be comfortable with,” Ms. Thukral says. “Lastly, juggling family responsibilities with a new career can be a complex task, especially due to the shortage of affordable and accessible child care options.”

These barriers can result in diminished opportunity for newcomer women. A 2022 Statistics Canada report showed that 62 per cent of recent immigrant women with a bachelor’s degree or higher were employed full-time in 2021, compared with 80 per cent of Canadian-born women with equivalent education.

Restoring confidence

Ms. Thukral says she started Lumen as a way to provide support for visible minority immigrant women in tech and tech-adjacent fields. “It enhances employability and prepares them to succeed.”

The first Lumen cohort (which included Ms. Nair) launched in May 2023 with 12 women, mostly from China, India and Latin America, with backgrounds in tech-adjacent fields like project management and communications. Ms. Thukral and a team of advisers conducted training sessions and analyzed digital media and communications job postings to help program participants get hired. The next cohort, which launched in September 2023, focuses on women in robotics and AI.

Lumen participants attend virtual bi-weekly group sessions to share their progress, gain tips on skills like interviewing and brainstorm ideas for job hunting, in addition to one-on-one sessions with Ms. Thukral and her team of advisers.

Ms. Nair says these sessions were invaluable in her job search.

“The resumé reviews, interview prep and mentoring sessions helped me throughout my job search. [My] mentor offered suggestions to enhance my resumé, [such as] considering the context of each job role,” she says. “With a few tweaks, I noticed an increase in interview callbacks.” One of those callbacks led to Ms. Nair securing a position in June 2023 as the marketing and communications coordinator for the Victoria Film Festival.

“I’m part of an amazing team, and it has played a vital role in restoring the confidence I had started to lose,” she says.

Ms. Thukral notes that Lumen addresses both the hard and soft skills that are required to succeed. For Lumen’s first cohort of digital media professionals, the team identified top skills required in media and communications roles, such as creating social media posts, writing articles and proficiency in Adobe Photoshop 5. Then, participants indicated which skills they already had and which skills they were interested in gaining for a personalized experience.

While Lumen has received and will continue to seek government funding, Ms. Thukral says that they are also in the process of partnering with employers to train participants and equip them with in-demand skills.

“We’ll provide them with hands-on, employer-led training projects to enhance their skills and bridge the gap between education and employment,” she says. For example, experiential learning platform Riipen has joined Lumen as a project partner to provide internship opportunities to program participants.

Longer outlooks for more impact

Rahila Ansari is well familiar with the challenges faced by newcomer women in finding employment in Canada. She has been working as a case manager and employment counsellor for the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. (ISSofBC) for over a decade. She says that settlement agencies like the ISSofBC can help professional women navigate their local job landscapes.

“We have a career paths program for skilled immigrants where a career practitioner sits with them and goes through their resumé,” Ms. Ansari says. The practitioner helps the newcomer identify what skills they’re lacking and recommend institutions that provide the courses or qualifications they need. ISSofBC also hosts skills-specific training, such as the Gateway to Tourism and Hospitality program, she adds.

Ms. Ansari hopes that governments at all levels will continue to fund skills training programs for newcomers with longer outlooks to create more impact, not just short-term solutions.

“Ensure [that] program funding spans between two to three years,” Ms. Ansari says. “You cannot see results right away.” She also encourages governments to provide newcomer women with pre-arrival information like labour market conditions, costs of living in each city and province and access to career planning programs.

With the right connections and assistance, career experts like Ms. Ansari and Ms. Thukral are hopeful that every newcomer woman can find a job that suits their interests and experience. Ms. Thukral says her goal with Lumen is to help participants find employment within six months of starting the program. So far, results have been promising.

“We’ve been able to help women secure mid- to senior-level positions at technology, finance, consulting and telecommunications companies in Canada,” she says.

Employment aside, Ms. Thukral also says it’s rewarding to foster connections between newcomer women. “They can see they’re not alone in this journey,” she says.

Source: Newcomer women often struggle to pursue their careers in Canada. These programs are helping them succeed

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →